Cassius is a 2.5 year old with 2 consecutive torn ACL surgeries resulting in her being without exercise for close to a year (each ACL can take 4-6 PLUS months to heal and once one goes, unfortunately there is a strong chance the other will go due to favoring the uninjured leg). She is a shorter boxer (22 inches +/-) and pushed the scales at 75 +/-.
Throughout her recovery, we had her on California Natural Diet dog food. After her recovery, she remained on that food for 3 months or so. We got her involved in lots of "daycare" time so that she could wrestle and play a solid 8 hours with other boxers to help her to burn her calories. 3 months later, she hadn't lost a pound. The vet was very surprised, so ordered up a Thyroid test which came back negative. He wanted her in the 60-65 pound range which is a lot of body weight percentage wise.
From reading discussion on this board, I decided to use frozen vegetables as a supplement to her dog food. I also decided to use "regular - non diet" food in place of the diet that I felt may have a lot of "fillers" added. The results have been incredible. In 2.5 months, she has dropped 8 pounds and looks GREAT! This is over a 10% bodyweight reduction. She occassionally (1x-2x/wk) whines for a little more food, which I give her (whatever 3 of my fingers grab), but other than that seems very satisfied, has TONS of more energy, is SO much happier (you can imagine what a year of housetime will do to a boxers morale), and looks and acts like a very strong and healthy dog. We have her on Wellness White Fish and give her 25% less than what the package indicates and provide her with frozen veges to make up the difference. Her COAT is shinier and softer as well. I'm not knocking California Natural, I think they have a good product and have had concerns that she may have been allergic to the diet product, but wanted to share my experience with "diet" brand foods nonetheless.
Justin
Throughout her recovery, we had her on California Natural Diet dog food. After her recovery, she remained on that food for 3 months or so. We got her involved in lots of "daycare" time so that she could wrestle and play a solid 8 hours with other boxers to help her to burn her calories. 3 months later, she hadn't lost a pound. The vet was very surprised, so ordered up a Thyroid test which came back negative. He wanted her in the 60-65 pound range which is a lot of body weight percentage wise.
From reading discussion on this board, I decided to use frozen vegetables as a supplement to her dog food. I also decided to use "regular - non diet" food in place of the diet that I felt may have a lot of "fillers" added. The results have been incredible. In 2.5 months, she has dropped 8 pounds and looks GREAT! This is over a 10% bodyweight reduction. She occassionally (1x-2x/wk) whines for a little more food, which I give her (whatever 3 of my fingers grab), but other than that seems very satisfied, has TONS of more energy, is SO much happier (you can imagine what a year of housetime will do to a boxers morale), and looks and acts like a very strong and healthy dog. We have her on Wellness White Fish and give her 25% less than what the package indicates and provide her with frozen veges to make up the difference. Her COAT is shinier and softer as well. I'm not knocking California Natural, I think they have a good product and have had concerns that she may have been allergic to the diet product, but wanted to share my experience with "diet" brand foods nonetheless.
Justin
